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| Welcome to Wesleyan Weekend |
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Sharon Dew Andrews grew up in the small town of Waycross, Georgia, and came to college to pursue a degree in piano performance. Wesleyan’s safe and secure environment allowed her to speak out in classes and grow. She was able to form close connections with students and faculty in her major and across campus.
Sharon received a liberal arts education that gave her a solid foundation on which to grow. And grow she did. After graduating from Wesleyan, she moved to Dallas, Texas, and received her master’s degree in piano pedagogy from Southern Methodist University and then went on to teach piano for more than 20 years. It was this teaching experience that opened her eyes to the field of education.
Sharon fell in love with teaching and found another professional calling – elementary education. In 1987, she completed her master’s degree in elementary education from the University of Arkansas in Little Rock. She began working at a local math and science magnet school and teaching science became her new passion.
Over the next two decades, Sharon furthered her love of education with classes in science education, gifted certification, physics education, and eventually received her doctorate in education in 2000 from University of South Dakota in Vermillon, South Dakota.
Currently, Sharon teaches high-ability fifth graders at the Challenge Center at Garfield Elementary School in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She expects a lot out of her students and they do not disappoint. She teaches them valuable critical thinking skills and learning for real life situations. But it is not just the learning experiences that Sharon passes along to her students. She connects with them and builds an invaluable relationship; she knows their hopes and dreams for the future.
“At the end of the year, I write a special letter to them that they can open when they graduate from high school,” Sharon told a South Dakota television station during a recent interview. “I am having my first reunion this year…my first class graduates this year.”
Her quest for education applied not only to her students but for her personal development as well. She has been diligent with her own participation in conferences, giving professional presentations and submitting scholarly papers to publications. All of her commitment has paid off not only for Sharon but also for the students she teaches.
In August 2007, she was named the South Dakota Teacher of the Year. A shocking and exciting honor, Sharon says. But this recognition falls right in line with her other accomplishments. She has been a teacher for over ten years in Little Rock, Arkansas, and also in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where she currently lives. During that decade, Sharon helped start a piano preparatory school at Augustana College, received a U.S. Department of Energy Internship, has been named Teacher of the Year by the SD Education Services Agency Region 2, Dr. John W. Harris Teacher of the Year, PTA Life Achievement Award Winner, Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers and received the Presidential Award for Excellence and Mathematics and the Huber Scholarship for Outstanding Doctoral Student.
Sharon is the picture of excellence and it is this excellence that has propelled her classes to rank first and second in the Math Masters of Minnesota Regional competitions each year since 2003. It is also the excellence that placed her school, the Challenge Center at Garfield Elementary, to rank second out of 330 schools in the Knowledge Master Competition.
“Making school experiences relevant to the kids,” Sharon says. “I like getting out of the textbook, getting into the real world.”
The real world is where Sharon has taken her liberal arts background from her alma mater, Wesleyan College. She is achieving excellence in her profession and encouraging a group of gifted fifth graders in South Dakota to do the same. Who knows, maybe she has a future Wesleyanne in her class?
To see updated information about Sharon’s journey to SD Teacher of the Year, see her website at faculty.augie.edu/~randrews/2008sdtoy/default.htm
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